When We Got Expelled from Europe

It’s a terrible idea. Until now, people muttered it quietly to themselves or said it only to trusted friends. But a seemingly endless series of Islamic terrorist attacks has brought it into the open.

After last week’s Islamic terrorist attack that killed 22 youths and children at an Ariana Grande concert, psychologist James Thompson let it rip:

“Islamic terrorists are making a clear statement: We can kill you whenever we like; we can kill your children; we can kill you in your most important public places; we can make your leaders hide behind bodyguards; we can make you partly undress every time you go through an airport; we can make fools of you by using your laws against you; we can make you scared of making fun of our religion even while you make fun of what remains of your own … we can breed resentful losers in such large numbers that any one of them can become a murderer, and it is unpredictable which Mohammed will take the predictable step of murdering you; and you will accept our excuses that we had no idea that particular Mohammed would take the logical step of biting the hand that fed it …”

Frontpage Magazine is by no stretch of the imagination a mainstream news site, but it’s not a fringe site, either. Many people read it. After an earlier terrorist attack in London, writer Daniel Greenfield walked right up to the terrible idea:

“We don’t know when or where the next attack will come. But we know from whom it will come. What are we going to do about it? We can pretend to be baffled the next time some Jihadi with a rap sheet longer than London Bridge goes on a killing spree … Or we can end the flow of future terrorists and deport the existing ones. Because they can’t run us over if we don’t let them in. They can’t bomb us if we don’t let them stay.”

He does not say “Muslims,” but neither does he get specific about who would qualify for deportation as “future terrorists.” It’s unlikely to include Presbyterians.

Many terrorist attacks slip past our police and intelligence services because there are too many potential terrorists to watch. Unwisely, our political leaders have brought millions of people from hostile countries to settle in ours. And instead of insisting that they accept our culture, laws, and values, our governments have encouraged separatism, bowing to the sacred cow of “diversity.”

Most resident aliens and migrants aren’t terrorists, but some are. If we can’t tell which is which, then we must either accept increasing terrorist attacks or — or what?

We Jews haven’t quite seen this movie before, but we starred in a similar one. In the 14th and 15th centuries, our people were expelled from England, France, Spain, and parts of Italy.

That’s where the similarity ends. The differences spotlight the challenges that face us today.

Other than not being Christians, we didn’t even do anything to get kicked out. We paid taxes, ran businesses, provided a financial system, and mostly kept to ourselves. We certainly didn’t go around murdering innocents in the name of God. We didn’t vilify and spit on the countries in which we lived.

Another obvious difference is the number of people involved. We don’t know exactly how many Jews were expelled, but possibly “no more than five thousand in England, fifty thousand in Italy, and a hundred thousand in France and Spain.” Based on population estimates for 1500 CE, we were 0.24 percent of the population in England, 3.33 percent in Italy, 0.67 percent in France, and 1.43 percent in Spain.

The contrast with today is stark. In 2016, the Muslim population of the United Kingdom was 3,115,000 (5.4 percent of the total population); Italy, 1,583,000 (2.6 percent); France, 3,574,000 (5.7 percent); and Spain, 1,021,000 (2.3 percent). Even if there were no other issues, uprooting even a significant minority of those people would cause great suffering and disruption.

And that’s a best-case scenario. In our case, when the kings of England, France, Spain, and Italy ordered us to go, we went. Peacefully.

If you believe that millions of angry Muslims would go peacefully, raise your hand. Nobody? I didn’t think so.

Expelling Muslims would mean civil war. Western societies would “win,” but at a terrible cost in bloodshed and destruction.

It could have been avoided if Western governments had followed sensible policies about immigration and assimilation, but that ship has sailed — for Mecca. We’re in a terrible fix. What are we going to do about it?

Until now, we’ve been kicking the can down the road. But the end of the road is in sight. We can’t kick it much longer before it bounces back and hits us. What then?